Continuing from the layout flat tones, here are the achromatic/monochromatic gradient thumbnails (Photoshop CS6) and their respective paintings (gouache).

You can tell I had fun with the last one. It was a struggle choosing between the colours, but the red appealed to me. (The dying fish was an impulse add and though I hope Florian won't lower his evaluation, it'll still be worth it.)

The "Good Morning!" storyboard for Maury's class. If there's anything I'd like to fix with this, it's that the scenes feel rather bland and typical. I'll definitely try to spice things up on my next storyboard.

As a side note, I really love working with markers and gel-pens. Mmm, white gel-pens.

And for fun, a doodle of me falling asleep on the GO Bus - because I do that, lots.

Art college is like a double-edged sword. The assignments are challenging and your peers inspire you to become that much better. At the same time you find yourself frustrated with your lesser skills. If you’re lucky, the frustration will be a drive for you to practice even harder. If you’re not, then it’ll cause more stress for you than you ever anticipated.

Still, practice hard because it’s not about them. It’s about you and how you grow as an artist and a creative mind. If you think you’re not good enough, it just means that you’ve broken out of your stagnancy. Instead of repeating the same techniques over and over again, you now have clear goals to aspire to. And even if you’ll never be “as good” as them, you’ll be growing and that’s just awesome.

Some design thumbnails for Florian Jacot's class. Layouts are a pretty new concept to me - I'm as guilty as charged of neglecting backgrounds in my artwork. These were quite fun though and I was surprised that I could actually draw landscapes. Most of these ideas came from scribbles and absent drawing - like the purple scribbles at the bottom of this post.

Rough thumbnails are the best; there's no need to worry about performance or the like - you can just spew your ideas onto the page!

This is the portfolio I applied with for the Sheridan College Animation program. It’s a black itoya, 11”x17” in size. I received a friendly query about how I went about the portfolio process, so here it is.

In total I received a mark of 3.26 which “Meets the Standard." I'll be working hard this year to step up my artwork!